Press Releases

Credible Electoral Act Key To National Development, Says Fashola

Dec 13, 2009 - Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), Sunday said the nation’s development will be put on the right track only if the country gets right the process by which the citizens elect their leaders.

Governor Fashola who spoke at the Lagos House, Marina, while playing host to the South-West Sub-Committee of the Senate on the review of the 1999 Constitution, said electoral reform is critical to the review of the Constitution because of its importance in the selection of credible leadership.

He declared, “I think if we get the electoral process right this time, we would have put the development of our country on the right track”, adding that the Senate sub-committee was right in making the electoral reform process a platform for the public hearing which begins today.

Governor Fashola said the importance of the electoral reform lies in the fact that it is “the process with which we choose our leaders; with which we choose those to whom we entrust our common assets, we entrust goods, we entrust life”.

The Governor said the Committee was also right in choosing Lagos as the seat for the South West hearing because, according to him, “the strategic nature of Lagos will help you to get, with one blow, the feelings of Nigerians; in one stop visit instead of going to six states as it were”.

The Governor said members of the Committee must have been familiar with Lagos in that it will be hard to imagine any senator in Nigeria who does not have an asset here or a brother who speaks his language or somebody who carries his tribal mark in the streets of Lagos.

Governor Fashola thanked the Committee for the graciousness it demonstrated in making Lagos its choice and assured the members of the support and assistance of his administration and that of the people of Lagos who, he said will seize the opportunity offered them by the choice “with both hands”.

“We are honoured at the opportunity of this choice and we thank you for the graciousness you demonstrated in giving us this opportunity and will seize it with both hands”, the Governor said, adding that Lagos will offer all of the support and the robustness of the contributions “that will hopefully make light of the work of the Senate”.

Earlier, in his introductory remarks, the Chairman of the Sub-Committee, Senator Teslim Folarin, had told the Governor that the main reason the Committee is in Lagos is to listen and receive memoranda from the people of the South West on the on-going review of the 1999 Constitution, adding that after holding a national public hearing in Abuja, the Senate thought it wise to take the hearing to the zones.

Senator Folarin said the choice of Lagos as seat for the South West hearing is because of the key role Lagos has played a in the political and economic development of the country adding that the cosmopolitan nature of Lagos will also guarantee a robust discourse.

Also present at the occasion was Senator Olorunimbe Mamora, Senator Ganiyu Solomon among other members of the Committee as well as the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Right Honourable Adeyemi Ikuforiji and some other officials of the Assembly as well as top government functionaries.